Gary Louris: Sound of truth
Former Jayhawks lead balances his dark side with celebrity-assisted harmonies
For two decades, Minneapolis singer/songwriter Gary Louris mesmerized a small but passionate group of devotees via his folksy, indie-pop band, the Jayhawks. At one point signed to Rick Rubin’s American Recordings, at another point featured in a “Dawson’s Creek” soundtrack, the band nibbled around the edges of the mainstream but never broke through.
And yet a couple years after the band’s demise, plenty of folks still count the group among their all-time favorites. I’m one. From what I heard at a party once, Larry Flynt is another. (I can’t find confirmation of this but you’ll just have to trust me. I was only a beer or two in when I heard it, promise.)
Jayhawks tunes always balanced a pop aesthetic with a dark sensibility, and seminal albums such as Hollywood Town Hall, Tomorrow the Green Grass and Sound of Lies let listeners choose which aspect they were going to embrace.
The same Jayhawks song could help you sink further into depression or help amplify an excited state. But the lyrics on the 53-year-old Louris’ recently released solo debut, Vagabonds, come down emphatically on the bleak end of the spectrum. “She Only Calls Me On Sundays,” is exactly as dreary as the title implies, and tracks like “Black Grass” and “I Wanna Get High” aren’t far behind.
“I seem to be a more ‘half-empty’ than ‘half-full’ person,” says Louris via phone, his voice lower and more brooding than his sweet, warbling vocals. “I always seemed to look a bit on the dark side, and I think if I was singing happy themes it would be too much saccharine, because the melodies on the album are pretty, the voice is pretty, and the music is pretty. I think what tempers it is the darker lyrics, and I find darker things to be much more compelling.”
Containing acoustic bits of folk and country, and almost entirely recorded live, the music is pretty, and features some celebrity input. Producer Chris Robinson (the Black Crowes) recruited the Chapin Sisters, the Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs, Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis and others to sing backup as part of a group calling itself the Laurel Canyon Family Choir.
“Part of the reason I like working with Chris is that he just knows musicians,” says Louris. “He’s part of a scene of people who go up and jam at the Canyon, and it’s kind of like this group of revolving musicians who aren’t necessarily in bands together, but play together and know each other personally. A lot of people just look at a list and pick who they think is the best bass player, then pick who’s the best drummer, and expect everyone to have chemistry, but it doesn’t always work that way. This just sounded good right away.”
Louris says that new material from his alt-country supergroup, Golden Smog, is also on the way – he calls it a “best of, or worst of” compilation, featuring remixes and outtakes – as well as an album he recorded with former Jayhawks songwriting partner Mark Olson. That CD, a quickly recorded, stripped down affair, features “just the two of us in a room, with acoustic guitars, singing and playing, without even headphones.”
Olson has probably battled more public demons than Louris – the former left Jayhawks in the mid-’90s to care for his multiple sclerosis-afflicted wife, musician Victoria Williams, and then more recently left her for another woman – while Louris’ home life is more stable.
Yet he says they both share a dark outlook.
“I think the world is filled with darkness and negativity and evil,” Louris says, before quickly adding: “it’s also filled with beauty and love and positivity. But it’s not one or the other, and that’s what my music encompasses.”
Such is the talk of a man who never found the fame he sought, but nonetheless seems to have found a way to make his life work for him.